The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

For the Peyregrils you must start from Cabanes and follow up the main stream of the Aston, by a clear path through the forest, taking with you the 1/100,000 map as a guide. A little after a point where a bridge is thrown over the river (called the Bridge of Coidenes), the two main streams of the Aston meet, one is seen flowing down from the south-east by the wooded gorge before one as one climbs, the other comes in cascades down a steep gully, pointing directly north and south. It is this gully which must be taken for the Peyregrils. One goes up over a steep rock still in the thick of the wood. On the far side of it one comes out into open grass country, and has one’s first sight of the main range. The path comes down again to the stream, having turned the cascade, crosses the stream and flows along its right or eastern bank between the water and a range of cliffs which are those of the Pic du Col de Gas. About a mile from this crossing of the stream, as one goes on southward with a little west in one’s direction, one comes to a side torrent falling in from the left; the path crosses this torrent, and still continues up the right bank of the main stream. It is a difficult point—for the path appears to bifurcate, and by taking the left-hand branch, as I did four years ago, one may lose oneself in the empty valley under the Cabillere and be cut off for two days as I was, or for ever, as I was not. It is by making these easy mistakes that men do get cut off, and you may be certain that people who are found dead in the mountains under small precipices, are not, as the newspapers say, killed by some accident, but by exhaustion. They have wandered in a mist, or have been lost in some other fashion, until privation so weakens them that they no longer have a foothold; and in general, the great danger of mountains is not a danger of falling, but of getting cut off from men. Here, as in many other difficulties of this kind, your compass will save you; for if you find you are going more and more to the east, you are on the wrong path. The right one goes south by west along the left bank of the stream. There is a broad jasse or pasture which one traverses in all its length, one crosses another torrent coming in from a rocky gorge upon the left, the torrent and the path together turn more and more westward until one’s general direction is due west, and at last one comes up against steep cliffs which are those of the Etang Blanc.

Thence, the way is plain, for the stream receives no further affluents and there is therefore no ambiguity of direction. The path follows the stream round a corner of rock whence one can see a tarn called the Etang de Soulauet, lying immediately under the watershed, and from that tarn the traveller goes straight up for 500 yards or so over the crest, straight down the steep further side, and finds at the bottom of the valley the stream called Rialb: such is the passage called the Peyregrils.

Once one is down on the banks of the Rialb, one has but to follow the trail which runs along the bank of that stream, cross it, reach the hamlet of Serrat, and so follow the broadening water to the little town of Ordino; four miles beyond is Andorra the Old. The whole distance from the pass to Andorra is somewhat over 12 miles, counting all the windings of the way. On this, as on so many crossings of the Pyrenees, the difficulty is wholly on the French side, once on the Spanish the broader valleys lead one without difficulty down one’s way.

The other entry into Andorra from the valley of the Aston, that by the Fontargente, is managed thus:—

When the Aston divides just after the bridge, one takes the south-eastern fork, one crosses the bridge and finds a clear path going up the right bank of the main stream of the Aston through a wood. Four miles on this path brings one out of the wood, and for another 4 miles it goes on still following the same side of the stream in a direction which is at first east of south, and at last curls round due south. There is a bridge or two crossing to the other side, but one must not take them. One must keep close to the eastern or right bank of the Aston all the way until one comes to a place difficult to recognize, and yet the recognition of which is immediately essential to success. It is a jasse rather narrow and small, lying between a rocky ridge upon the left or east and a line of cliffs upon the right or west. Here are a few cabanes, and even if one has missed the place on first coming to it, it can be recognized from the fact, that, at the further end of this jasse, the two sources of the Aston meet in almost one straight line, making with the main stream one has been following, a shape like the letter “T.”

The path branches and takes either valley or arm of the “T”; it is that to the left or east down which one must turn—the one to the right or west leads nowhere but to the impassable cliffs and precipices of the Passade and the Cabillere. The eastern or right-hand path then must be followed in a direction just south of east for exactly 1 mile, during all of which it keeps to the north of the stream. At the end of that mile it crosses the stream, turns gradually round a high lump of rocky hill, going first south, then in a few yards south-west until it comes, at about a mile from the place where it crossed, upon the large tarn or small lake of Fontargente, “The Silver Water.” The port lies in view just above the lake not 500 yards off. Once over it, it is the same story as the Peyregrils, a trail following running water which leads one through the upper villages to Canillo, the first town, to Encamps, the second one, and so down to Andorra the Old. The distance from the main range to Andorra by this trail is 2 or 3 miles greater than by the Peyregrils.

These are the two difficult and mountain ways of making Andorra from the north.

The easier and much the commoner way is to approach it from the upper waters of the Ariège.

One takes the main road from Ax to Hospitalet up which there is a public carriage or “diligence”; it is as well to go on foot, for one will get to Hospitalet before the diligence if one starts at the dawn of a summer’s day, and it is important to get there early as there is no good sleeping place between the French side and the town of Andorra itself. At Hospitalet the main track for Andorra runs down in a few feet to the torrent of the Ariège, crosses it, and follows its left bank. It goes over the frontier which is here an artificial line, and though you are still on the French side of the range, you are politically in Andorra, upon this deserted grassy slope which forms the left bank of the Ariège.

At the second torrent which comes down this slope into the river—or rather the second stream, for they are quite small—the telegraph wire, which has hitherto followed the path, will be seen going over to the right, up a somewhat steep side valley. This is at a point about 4 miles from Hospitalet. You have but to follow that line if it is fine weather, and you will come right over the ridge and down on to the Spanish side of the Andorran hamlet, Saldeu. If it is misty on the heights you will almost certainly lose the line, and possibly your life as well. Nevertheless the crossing can be made even in bad weather by going somewhat further south to the point called the Port d’Embalire. To find this needs a certain care. Note with your compass the trend of the Ariège; it curves round more and more as you follow it, and when it begins to point due south (which it does after a perceptible bend) you may note a fairly plain track coming down from the opposite side of the valley: it comes down and strikes the Ariège at a spot almost exactly 2 miles from the place where the line of the telegraph left the stream. Here opposite the road turn sharp up away from the Ariège (which is now but a tiny brook) and go due west by your compass right up the mountain, which is here nothing but a steep grassy slope, and you will strike the Embalire.